EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Not Quite A Parakeet

Parakeet Auklet (Aethia psittacula), Family Alcidae
St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, USA

Explanation:  Sporting a parakeet's bill, this is ... not a parakeet.  

Here sits a Parakeet Auklet, a wonderful seabird of an amazing mixed-species seabird colony I explored on the north shore of St. Lawrence Island, in the middle of the Bering Sea off Alaska.  

Parakeet Auklets are pelagic species that come ashore onto rocky cliffs to nest.  They feed on marine crustaceans, jellyfish, and other oceanic foods.  

As I observed on St. Lawrence Island, they nest associated with other seabirds of the region, particularly with Crested Auklets, Least Auklets, Horned Puffins, and more.  

But, as with their pelagic cousins, Parakeet Auklets are susceptible to impacts of ocean warming in the arctic region.  Studies (Kuletz et al. 2020) show how these and other marine birds vacated their nesting sites and move further northward or westward, in various responses to to changes in the environment including lack of sea ice (Nishizawa et al. 2020).  For Parakeet Auklets, weather conditions can greatly affect numbers and presence at egg-laying sites, with strong winds causing them to leave their sites earlier than usual (Konyukhov 2020).  

And other threats to the seabird colonies there include shipping vessel traffic and associated oil spills, strikes, and disturbance (Thiebot et al. 2022).

Parakeet Auklets caught in the squeeze between
changing climate, warming ocean, sea traffic,
and limited alternative refuges in the Arctic.

Information:
    Konyukhov, N.B.  2020.  Monitoring surveys of the Parakeet Auklet (Aethia psittacula, Charadriiformes, Alcidae): daily and seasonal attendance patterns in North Pacific colonies.  Biology Bulletin 46:1124-1130.
    Kutetz, K., D. Cushing, and E. Labunski.  2020.  Distributional shifts among seabird communities of the Northern Bering and Chukchi seas in response to ocean warming during 2017–2019.  Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography 181-182:104913.
    Nishizawa, B., N. Yamada, H. Hayashi, C. Wright, K. Kuletz, H. Ueno, T. Mukai, A. Yamaguchi, and Y. Watanuki.  2020.  Timing of spring sea-ice retreat and summer seabird-prey associations in the northern Bering Sea.  Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography 181-182:104898.
    Thiebot, J.-B., A.P. Will, S. Tsukamoto, A.S. Kitaysky, and A. Takahashi.  2022.  The Designated Shipping Avoidance Area around St. Lawrence Island, Northern Bering Sea, is not sufficient to protect foraging habitat of the island’s breeding seabird community.  Frontiers in Marine Science 9: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.875541.